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Michelson-Morley experiment
The Michelson–Morley experiment was published in 1887 by Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley and performed at what is now Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. It attempted to detect the relative motion of matter through the stationary luminiferous aether ("aether wind"). The negative results are generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the then-prevalent aether theory, and initiated a line of research that eventually led to special relativity, in which the stationary aether concept has no role. The experiment has been referred to as "the moving-off point for the theoretical aspects of the Second Scientific Revolution". Tossup Questions # A pool of mercury in a basement provided a nearly frictionless and vibration-free environment for rotating this experiment's apparatus. This experiment found a fringe shift of nearly zero, instead of the expected four-tenths of a fringe. The interference pattern discrepancy indicated that the speed of light did not vary with direction in this experiment, which used an interferometer named for one of its experimenters. For 10 points, name this experiment in which two scientists disproved the existence of luminiferous ether. # The results of this experiment were confirmed by the Trouton-Noble experiment. One participant in this experiment continued to work with Dayton Miller in an attempt to achieve a different result, while the result in this experiment was a failure to detect any significant fringe shift after light passed through an (*) interferometer. Such a shift would have provided evidence for a medium in which light travels, a theory which was therefore debunked by this experiment. For 10 points, name this experiment that disproved the existence of the luminiferous aether. # Kennedy and Illingworth attempted to carry out this experiment with a half-wave step. One of its conductors later worked with Dayton Miller to resolve the problem that this experiment raised. The setup of this experiment was constructed atop a slab of marble floating in a pool of mercury. One of this experiment's conductors created a namesake interferometer to split a single light source into two beams of light. For 10 points, name this experiment, the null result of which discredited the existence of luminiferous loo-mih-NIH-fer-us ether. # This experiment was intended to provide data useful in a future experiment to test Charles Sanders Peirce's hypothesis that the wavelength of an atomic spectral line could be used as a standard unit of length. One of the experimenters suggested using a sandstone-and-mercury support for its critical device after a previous attempt had failed in Potsdam. A follow-up to this experiment used that device to detect variations due to the Earth's rotation; that experiment by Kennedy and Thordike also failed to observe a fringe shift of 0.4 as expected. That device used in this experiment included two mirrors and a half-silvered glass plate and is known as one namesake's interferometer. For 10 points, name this 1887 experiment that failed to prove the existence of a stationary ether. # This experiment was replicated with erroneous results by Dayton Miller. This experiment was replicated with a self-orienting capacitor by Trouton and Noble, and its central device was shortened in the Kennedy-Thorndike experiment. The Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction sought to explain the results of this experiment, in which * light was split with a half-silvered mirror. This experiment proved that the speed of light does not depend on the viewer's movement through space. Utilizing an interferometer at Case Western was, for 10 points, what doubly named experiment that disproved the existence of the luminiferous ether?